Langevin's Train-the-Trainer Blog

Marsha Weisleder

Marsha has been a course leader with Langevin since 2000. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience. She went on to attend Osgoode Hall Law School and practiced civil litigation for a few years. While working for a company as their in-house legal counsel, Marsha fell into a training position and never looked back! Each day, Marsha brings passion and excitement to her workshops, always encouraging her participants to find their own passion as well. Outside of the classroom, Marsha loves to spend time with her family, travel, and stay active. Of course her main obsession is Elvis! Some people might think she’s a little over-the-top about him, but doesn’t everyone have an Elvis shrine in their home? Maybe not…

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Recent Posts

It’s 3:00 pm on a Friday and the training manager calls you to his/her office with the news…we need you to teach this new course on Monday. What? Well, the good news is you have the weekend to prepare but the bad news is you have the weekend to prepare! Can you relate? Talk about NOT being set up for success. Unfortunately, this is a reality in many corporations and certainly not ideal.

I hear it all the time…how do we sustain the learning? How do we get our participants to apply what they’ve learned back on the job? How do we transfer the learning from the classroom to the real world? Let’s face it, if they don’t use it, they’ll lose it! When you think about how much money it costs to train people, we better see some type of improvement back on the job.

Learning how to drive all over again with the help of Langevin’s How Adults Learn workshop…

Well, here’s a funny story. I recently relocated to Atlanta, Georgia. No, not because I want to be a Southern belle, but because I married an American, living in Georgia. The things we do for love, but that’s for another time. So here I am, a permanent resident of the United States and I realize I don’t have a Georgia Driver’s License. Well, that’s easy to change, I thought.

You may not know this about me but I’m obsessed with starting and finishing a class with a bang. Yes, I’ve written about it before but I’m always looking for new ways to wow our learners. Let’s face it, there are people who resent training. I like to get their attention early on. I also want them leaving the session feeling like it was a good use of their time.

Have you ever wondered what your training style is and where it came from? Do you like presenting most of the material in the course or do you prefer when participants direct their own learning? Do you like controlling discussions or prefer listening to what others have to say?

So, you need a favor from me. What’s the best way to ask for it? Do you present me with facts and numbers? Do you use the model, “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine?” How about trying to charm me into saying, “yes?” Or do you get me excited about the idea? What if you have no authority or power? With so many options, what’s the best answer?

I was very sad when I heard, quite some time ago, of the passing of Donald Kirkpatrick, the creator and founder of the four levels of evaluation. Even though I never met him, I feel connected to him in some way. You see, I have been teaching his principles for over 14 years now. Let me rephrase that, not just teaching, but rather inspiring and motivating others with his vision. I am so passionate about his evaluation model and the impact it has made on the world of training.

Let’s face it, no one likes it AND it’s the hardest part of our job. We all have our own “war stories” that we love to share. So, what am I referring to? Of course, it’s how to deal with difficult participants. No fear, my fellow trainers. Here are six simple steps to deal with any difficult participant or behavior. I promise this model will set you up for success and keep your sessions running smoothly. You can learn about them and so much more in our Instructional Techniques for New Instructors workshop.

Today it’s very common to have four different generations working side-by-side in the workplace. Can you imagine when they’re all in the same classroom? What’s a trainer to do? How can we accommodate the different ages, learning styles, and preferences of these different generations?

To train or not to train…that’s the question. Every year, we spend billions of dollars on training in corporate North America, with no change in performance back on the job. So why are we training people? Sometimes management asks for it. Or maybe it’s the new flavor of the month and everyone is doing it. Or possibly we have to spend our budget dollars or we’ll lose them next year. Although we hate to admit it, I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of conducting training for some of these WRONG reasons.